Everything was looking up.
Three more days passed, and Kain’s injuries had finally healed enough that he no longer needed Roy’s attentive care. Of course, from that day on, a lot of the odd jobs became his responsibility.
For an officer used to having servants wait on him at home and attendants follow him around in the military, simple chores like washing dishes and wiping plates were naturally unfamiliar territory. He even sliced his finger on the jagged edge of a broken glass bottle, earning merciless laughter from the captain and Jackdaw. Thanks to his incredible ability to learn, though, that sort of thing soon stopped happening.
Those peaceful days lasted until four days later—the sixteenth day the two of them had survived on the deserted island. Elfie’s excited, shrill cries split the stillness above the eastern shore, carrying across the white sand and black soil into the little world shared by two people and a bird.
A dead branch rested on a jutting part of the stone wall inside the little cave. Three plump mackerel hung beneath it, all smoked so they would keep for a long time.
When Elfie’s cries reached the little cave, Roy was learning how to use the pistol she’d snatched from Kain. To a pirate, even a legendary one as famous as her, this sort of military weapon—so strictly controlled by the Orlan Empire—was still a complete mystery.
The captain, accustomed to using a matchlock, watched with wide eyes as Kain turned the elegant pistol in his hands. Its intricate mechanisms made it look like a work of art. She kept nodding.
“So all I have to do is load the powder, take off the safety, and pull the trigger? It’s that easy?” Roy took the pistol Kain handed her, looking as surprised as a country kid who’d never seen the world.
“Yes. But remember, it can still only fire once at a time,” Kain warned gravely.
“Yes, yes, I know.” Roy hurried to agree. She knew that if she ignored his words—even if she only pretended to—this Navy man, who was so meticulous and wouldn’t tolerate the slightest mistake, would lecture her about it all day.
I can’t tell if I’ve recruited a second-in-command or hired a nanny.
Roy thought with a helpless sigh, then put the pistol back in its holster.
In truth, she didn’t regret recruiting the officer as her second-in-command at all. Over the past few days, she’d seen the terrifying learning ability of the young man now that he’d recovered, along with his flawless knack for planning and getting things done. More than once, she’d congratulated herself on making the right choice.
Just as she was about to discuss their plans for the next few days with Kain, the captain suddenly fell silent. Her ears twitched, and she caught the distant sound of her beloved pet calling out. The words made her heart leap.
“Blue whale! Blue whale!”
Blue whales were often seen around the Southern Islands. Since every part of them was valuable, pirates often hired whalers from the islands to hunt them, then sold the whale skin, bones, blubber, and the like for a hefty sum to the Orlan Empire and the Punora Federation. But the two words Elfie was calling out now didn’t refer to those enormous, beautiful creatures.
In pirate slang, a “blue whale” meant a merchant ship carrying treasure—the kind of prize pirates coveted most.
Just as Roy had prayed, their luck had finally turned.
A merchant ship had arrived outside the deserted island.
“What in the world is this place? My Lord, guide your lost believer out of the Devil’s maze!”
Captain Eda, a stout man, lowered the monocular telescope he’d been pointing out to sea. He stared at the identical, unchanging scenery in every direction, his head pounding.
Only now did he have to admit that he was nowhere near as talented at navigation as he was at business.
Eda Voit was twenty-six years old, a merchant from a small country called Pali in the Punora Federation. A month ago, he’d set out from Lohabi, a coastal port in the Federation, to transport Pali’s specialty—wheat beer—and had headed east along the most commonly used route between the Federation and the Empire.
He’d thought that with exceptionally detailed charts and experienced old sailors, he wouldn’t need to pay a fortune to hire one of the Federation’s official navigators, who looked down their noses at everyone. But he hadn’t expected to run into a storm unlike any before. Through the hazy veil of spray, he’d even glimpsed a whirlpool larger than a small city.
Under the influence of seemingly endless thunderstorms and a wildly shifting magnetic field, his compass had failed. For three whole days and nights, dark clouds had covered the sky, while the twin-masted merchant ship was tossed east and west by currents and gales. Who knew how many miles it had drifted off course?
Now the weather had cleared, and a bright blue sky stretched overhead. But there were no distinctive landmarks anywhere to tell them where they were, so the merchant, navigating for the first time, could only rely on the old sailor’s judgment and press eastward on what felt like a never-ending voyage.
After more than ten days and nights, they reached the waters outside a deserted island that looked like Hell.
Following the sailors’ shouts and pointing fingers, Eda leaned over the railing to look down. He wished he hadn’t—the sight nearly scared him out of his skin.
Blackened wreckage floated on the sea. It looked like the remains of some fine warships, completely destroyed. But the strangest part was that there wasn’t a single body among the wreckage.
The scene was so shocking and eerie that the sailors, long accustomed to idleness and too timid to resist even pirates—preferring to pay up and avoid trouble—turned pale and trembled nonstop.
Only the old sailor, aged but still powerfully built, shook his head and said to the captain, who was already reeling, “Looks like a disaster happened here. Everyone died.”
“A dis-disaster?” Eda swallowed with difficulty. “Why couldn’t it have been a battle?”
“Have you forgotten what we saw back then, Captain?” The old sailor didn’t explain. He only brought up the terrifying whirlpool they’d all witnessed some time ago, along with the thick bolts of lightning that had kept striking down.
“You mean those ships were all struck by the lightning, and the whirlpool dragged the dead down to the seafloor?” Eda shuddered and cautiously glanced at the cloudless sky, afraid a bolt might come crashing down on his head.
“That’s the only explanation. And judging by the design of these warships, they must belong to the Orlan Empire’s Imperial Navy.” The old sailor’s eyes gleamed as he quickly examined the keels of several ships that hadn’t been too badly damaged and gave his verdict.
The sailors gazed at the old man with awe and admiration, believing every word he said. After all, he’d once been a proud sailor in the Punora Navy—and a sworn enemy of the Orlan Empire.
“As for why they came here…”
The old sailor gazed gravely at the mist as it slowly faded, revealing the deserted island within. “I’m afraid it was that island.”
“Th-then let’s forget it. We should turn around and leave!”
Even knowing that the island might hold some treasure valuable enough to draw a fleet of that size from the Orlan Empire, the timid Captain Eda didn’t want to invite trouble. He planned to turn the ship around at once and get as far as possible from that ill-omened island.
Just as he was turning the wheel, a sharp-eyed sailor pointed toward the deserted island’s white-sand shore and shouted, “Captain, there’s someone over there!”
